Transcriptomic analysis reveals the adaptive responses of soybean subjected to drought stress

Soybean is one of the most important oil crops with economical significance. Drought is the most common of environmental stresses, which has had dramatic impacts on the soybean growth and yield worldwide. Therefore, to investigate the response mechanism of soybean under varying degrees of drought, the cultivar Liaodou 15 was exposed to 7 (LD), 17 (MD) and 37 (SD) days of progressive drought stress at the flowering stage followed by rehydration until harvest. The physiological evaluation in soybean revealed that the antioxidant activity and osmotic substances were rapidly increased. A total of 2214, 3684 and 2985 differentially expressed genes were identified by RNA-seq.Collectively, the aim of this work was to elucidate the mechanism underlying the soybean response to drought stress, to provide a theoretical basis for the molecular breeding of drought resistance and adjust water-saving irrigation effectively for soybean under field production.